Nov. 9, 2015
Black Presiding Bishop Installed As Head of the Episcopal Church
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Michael B. Curry, installed on Sunday as the 27th Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church, is the first African-American man to hold the post in what many argue is the nation’s most-influential church because of its wealthy members.
After knocking on the west door in the traditional manner at noon, he was admitted to the cathedral by the Very Rev. Gary Hall, the cathedral’s dean, and Diocese Mariann Budde, who asked Curry, “tell us who you are.”
“I am Michael Bruce Curry, a child of God, baptized in St. Simon of Cyrene Church in Maywood, Illinois, on May 3, 1953, and since that time I have sought to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ,” he replied.
He succeeded the 26th Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori, the first woman to hold the post. “In the name of Christ, we greet you,” Schori told Curry, according to the Episcopal News Service. He will serve nine years.
More than 2,500 people attended the ceremony.
Curry, 62, former bishop of North Carolina, was elected Presiding Bishop-elect on the first ballot during the church’s 78th convention June 27th in Salt Lake City.
He received a Master of Divinity degree in 1978 from Yale Divinity School. Curry was elected eleventh bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of North Carolina on February 11, 2000.
Curry spoke of evangelism and reconciliation, especially racial reconciliation, calling it “some of the most-difficult work possible.”
Curry and his wife, Sharon, are the parents of two adult daughters, Rachel and Elizabeth.